Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service Live Streams Press Events via iPhone

I wanted to share a recent new addition to the Montgomery
County (MD) Fire and Rescue Service (MCFRS) Social Media tool kit that was
tested out on December 14,
2011. The good news is it is
free and provides another layer of value added service for our county
residents.

Using a hand held iPhone, MCFRS live streamed two press
events that were held at one of our fire and rescue stations. The event was live streamed through our new UStream Site.

Twitter and Facebook
were used to announce what was going on and where folks could go to watch
it. Of interest is the fact that one of
the local web news outlets, Germantown
Patch, embedded the streaming video onto their site as well thus providing
a whole other platform, and audience, where people could view it. It is hoped other news sites will follow suit
in the future.

This proved to be a good first run to see how things worked
and what could be done in the future.
The quality was not the best but, considering it was through an iPhone,
it was not that bad either. More
sophisticated equipment should be used in the future but it is nice to know
that the iPhone will work in a pinch or during an emergent situation. We will also be able to embed any future live
stream events on our MCFRS Blog as
well.